CHAPTER XXIV.
THE DUNGEON.
It was just before sunset of the disastrous day which saw the traitorous monks of Ely return from the castle at Cam-Bridge, that the Lord of Brunn and his trusty sword-bearer arrived at Turbutsey[[240]] (where the monks of old had landed the body of Saint Withburga) with the corn and wine for the abbey; and also with the dead body of the Salernitan, which they hoped to inter in the abbey church-yard. Turbutsey had but few in-dwellers; and the poor hinds that were there had heard nothing of the foul report of Lord Hereward’s death, which had wrought such mischief in the abbey. Lord Hereward, eager to be at his proper post in the Camp of Refuge, took the direct road, or path, which led thereunto, carrying with him, for the comfort of secular stomachs, only a few flagons of wine and a few measures of wheat, and ordering Elfric to go up to the abbey with all the rest of the provision, as soon as it should be all landed from the boats and skerries. But, before the landing was finished, there came down some gossips from the township of Ely, who reported with marvellous sad faces, that the gates of the abbey had been closed ever since the mid-day of yesterday; and that the whole house was as silent and sad as a pest-house, on account, no doubt, of the death of the good Lord of Brunn, the kind-hearted, open-handed lord, who had ever befriended the Saxon poor! Upon hearing them talk in this fashion, the sword bearer came up to the gossips, and told them that the Lord of Brunn was no more dead than he was.
“Verily,” said the people, “the sad news came down to the township yesterday before the hour of noon; and ever since then the abbey gates and church gates have been closed, and the township hath been in tears.”
Now, upon hearing this strange news, Elfric’s quick fancy began to work, and apprehending some evil, albeit he knew not what, he resolved not to carry up the stores, but to go up alone by himself to see what strange thing had happened in the abbey, that should have caused the monks to bar their doors, and even the doors of the church, against the faithful. He thought not of the want of rest for one night, or of the toils he had borne on that night and during two whole days, for he had borne as much before without any great discomfort; but he looked at the stark body of the Salernitan, as it lay with the face covered in one of the boats, and then he thought of Girolamo’s death-wound and dying moment, and of the ill-will which some of the convent had testified towards that stranger, and of the rumours he had heard of murmurings and caballings against the good Lord Abbat, and he said to himself, “My heart is heavy, or heavier than it ever was before, and my mind is haunted by misgivings. If the monks of Ely be traitors to their country, and rebels to their abbat, by all the blessed saints of the house of Ely they shall not taste of this bread, nor drink of this wine! And then this unburied, uncoffined, unanealed[[241]] body, and the dying prayer of Girolamo for Christian burial, and a grave whither the Normans should come not!... I must see to that, and provide against chances.” And having thus said to himself, he said aloud to his troop of fenners: “Unload no more corn and wine, but stay ye here at Turbutsey until ye see me back again; but if I come not back by midnight, or if any evil report should reach ye before then, cross the river, and carry all the corn and the wine with ye deep into the fens; and carry also with ye this the dead body of Girolamo, unto whom I bound myself to see it interred in some safe and consecrate place; and go by the straightest path towards Spalding! Do all this if ye love me and reverence the Lord of Brunn; and in the meanwhile rejoice your hearts with some of the good drink: only be wise and moderate.” And the fenners said that they would do it all, and would be moderate: and thereupon, leaving behind him the Ely gossips, and the fenners, the corn, the wine, and the dead body of Girolamo, Elfric took the road to the abbey, and arrived ad magnam portam, at the main-gate, before it was quite dark. A few of the town folk had followed him to the gate, shouting with all their main that Elfric the lucky sword-bearer had come back, that the Lord of Brunn had come back, and that they had brought good store of corn, meal, and wine for my Lord Abbat Thurstan: for, upon reflection, Elfric had thought it wise to tell them this much. But from within the abbey Elfric heard no sound, nor did he see the form or face of man, in the turret over the gate-way, or in the windows, or on the house-top. But there were those or the watch within who saw Elfric very clearly, and who heard the noise the town-folk were making: and anon the small wicket-gate was opened, and Elfric was bade enter; and the poor folk were commanded to go home, and cease making that outcry. Once, if not twice, Elfric thought of withdrawing with the Ely folk, and then of racing back to Turbutsey; for he liked not the aspect of things: but it was needful that he should have a clear notion of what was toward in the abbey, and so blaming himself, if not for his suspicions, for his own personal apprehensions, he stepped through the wicket, taking care to shout, at the top of his voice, as he got under the echoing archway, “Good news! brave news! The Lord Hereward is come back to the camp, and hath brought much corn and wine for this hallowed house! Lead me to Abbat Thurstan—I must speak with the Lord Abbat forthwith!
“Thou mayst speak with him in the bottomless pit,” said the sub-prior. And as the sub-prior spoke, under the dark archway within the gate, a half-score from among the traitorous monks leaped upon the faithful sword-bearer, and put a gag into his mouth, so that he could cry out no more, and whirled him across the court-yards, and through the cloisters, and down the steep wet staircase, and into the cell or vault, or living grave, within and under the deep foundations of the abbey: and there, in the bowels of the earth, and in utter solitude and utter darkness, and with three several iron-bound doors closed upon him, they left him, making great haste to return to the refectory, and hoping that their plan had been so well managed that none but the desperate members of their own faction had either seen Elfric enter, or heard his shouts, or the shouts of the town-folk.
So soon as Elfric could get the gag out of his mouth, and recover from his first astonishment, he began to think; and he thought that this was but a bad return for his fighting and risking death for the sake of the stomachs and bowels of the monks of Ely; and he became convinced in his own mind that the traitorous monks must have made away with the noble Abbat Thurstan, and have consummated their treachery: and then he thought of his friends in the Camp of Refuge, and at Hadenham, and of the Lord Hereward and the Ladie Alftrude, and, most of all, of the maid Mildred! And then there came before him the ghastly face of the Salernitan, and rang in his ears, like a knell, the words which the dying Girolamo had used in the morning, when speaking of the hard doom of his beloved! And, next to this, he bethought himself of the fearful legend of the house of Ely, which related how the blinded prince, who had pined so long in those dreary vaults, had ever since haunted them under the most frightful forms! Yet when his lively fancy had brought all these things before him, and even when he had become convinced that he would be buried alive, or left to starve and gnaw the flesh from his own bones in that truly hellish pit, which he knew was as dark by day as by night, a sudden and sweet calm came over his distraught mind; and he kneeled on the cold slimy floor of the dungeon and raised to heaven his hands, which he could not see himself, but which were well seen by the saints above, unto whom thick darkness is as bright light; and when he had said a short prayer for himself and for his Mildred, for his generous lord and most bountiful ladie, he threw himself along the ground, and laying his left arm under his head for a pillow, he made himself up for sleep. “Come what will,” said he, “I have been true to my God, to my saints, to my country, to my church, to my lord and master, and to my love! This martyrdom will soon be over! Not these deep hollows of the earth, nor all the weight of all the walls and arched roofs and springing towers of Ely Abbey can crush or confine, or keep down, the immortal spirit of man! Mildred! my Lord Hereward! my noble lady and mistress! and thou, oh joyous and Saxon-hearted Lord Abbat Thurstan! if traitors have it their own way here, we meet in heaven, where there be no Normans and no Saxon traitors!” And so saying, or thinking, and being worn out by excess of fatigue, or rather by the excessiveness of his late short moral anguish,—an agony sharper than that of the rack, upon which men are said to have fallen asleep,—Elfric in a very few moments fell into the soundest of all sleeps. The toads, which fatten in darkness, among the noxious and colourless weeds which grow where light is not, and the earth-worms crawled over and over him, but without awakening him, or giving him any disturbance in his deep sleep. And as he slept, that black and horrent dungeon, in which his body lay, was changed, by the bright visions which blessed his sleep, into scenes as bright as the chapel of Saint Etheldreda in the abbey church, on the great day of the saint’s festival, when a thousand waxen tapers are burning, and the whole air is loaded with incense and with music. It was the sunshine of a good conscience shining inwardly.
Now, while it fared thus with the captive below, much talk and discussion took place among divers of the honest monks above; for, notwithstanding the great care which had been taken to send away the Ely folk, and to seize and gag Elfric as soon as he came within the gate, the cry of the men of Ely, and the shout of the sword-bearer that Lord Hereward had come back, and had brought much corn and wine, were heard in almost every part of the house; and, upon hearing them, the monks that were not of the faction grievously lamented what had been done against the Lord Abbat, and in favour of the Normans, and very clearly perceived that a trick had been put upon them in the report of Lord Hereward’s death.
“I tell ye now, as I told ye then,” said Father Kynric, “that ye all make too much account of your meat and drink, and are all too impatient of temporary inconvenience. But what said the blessed Etheldreda? ‘The fashion of this world passeth away; and that only is to be accounted life which is purchased by submitting to temporal inconveniences.’”
“And tell me,” said that other good old Saxon monk, the Father Celred; “tell me, oh my brethren, tell me how Saint Etheldreda fared when she was in the flesh, and ruled this house as lady abbess?”
“Aye,” said good Father Elsin, “Saint Etheldreda never wore linen, but only woollen; she never returned to her bed after matins, which were then begun immediately after midnight; and, except on the great festivals of the church, she ate only once a day, nor cared nor knew whether her bread was white or brown.”